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Sunday, April 24, 2016

Our April 26 (April 25 in the Americas) program will feature special guest
Cuban Jazz/Blues/Fusion guitarist Hector Quintana, a nominee in the Jazz
category in Cubadisco 2015. Also, some nice Charanga from Orquesta America,
also a Cubadisco 2015 nominee (Traditional Son), some of David Alvarez &
Juego de Manos (yet another nominee, in Popular Dance Music) and more of the
beautiful concert piano album Danzas Para Piano de Ignacio Cervantes.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Last weekend, Radio Habana Cuba
had a special transmission on 17580 kHz, creating an interesting co-channel
situation with VOA Radiogram Saturday at 1600-1630. RHC caused only minor
interference in Europe, but in parts of the Americas, decoding VOA Radiogram was
difficult. In this video by Tim in Colorado, VOA Radiogram and RHC are fairly
evenly matched …

On the other hand, some
listeners were not as successful with Olivia 64-2000, and found that this mode
did not perform as well as MFSK32 – which is much faster. I wonder if the
problem is related to the receiver’s bandwidth. Olivia 64-2000 extends to 2500
Hz above and below the carrier. If any of that data is “clipped,” the decode
might be less than 100%. We could try some experiments with this in future
programs.

This weekend, all the content
will be in MFSK32, except for the transmission schedule in Olivia 64-2000 mixed
with the closing music.

Here is the lineup for VOA
Radiogram, program 160, 23-24 April 2016, all in MFSK32 except where
noted:

The Mighty
KBC will transmit a minute of MFSK32
Sunday at about 0220 UTC (Saturday 10:20 pm EDT) on 6040 kHz, via Germany. This
is part of KBC’s North America broadcast at 0000-0300 UTC. Reception reports to
Eric: themightykbc@gmail.com
.

It's hoped Radio Vanuatu will soon return to the standard it once was when it could be heard by everyone in the archipelago.

It's hoped Radio Vanuatu will soon return to the standard it once was when it could be heard by everyone in the archipelago.
Years of neglect and political interference have resulted in the deterioration of transmission to the outer islands but there's a new push to get nation-wide coverage again.
As Bridget Tunnicliffe reports, short wave radio is being seen as important as ever in the Pacific.
The need to get early warnings to people, especially in more remote areas has been highlighted by the increased frequency of severe tropical cyclones. The government recently replaced the Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation board following concerns over the lack of the public broadcaster's ability to reach the outer islands. An MP for Tanna, Tom Louniwan, says they don't get clear reception on Tanna and it's unreliable.
TOM IOUNIWAN: We depend much of the radio for information because we're now living in the climate change and you know cyclones, and tsunamis and you know.The board's new chair Johnety Jerety says nation-wide coverage has to be implemented by July 1st under the government's 100 day plan. He says they are on track to achieve that but says part of the problem is people have been buying cheap radios that are not compatible. He says out of habit people have also become more accustomed to tuning into the island's main FM station.
JOHNETY JERETY: Because they have lost coverage with Radio Vanuatu for so long they now have difficulties in tuning in to our frequency system and that is what we are doing now to promote all these frequencies to the islands, to ensure that everyone knows which type of frequency they should be tuning in.New Zealand radio transmission engineer, Steve White, has made several trips to Vanuatu and other Pacific countries to help set up transmission equipment. He says the big advantage of short-wave radio is that receivers are extremely cheap to buy. Mr White says the other benefit is that the transmission is capable of covering enormous distances.
STEVE WHITE: From Port Vila you can cover the entire country of Vanuatu, which spans something like 1100 kilometres in a roughly North-South direction, that can't be achieved by any other transmission mode.Johnety Jerety says despite increases in government funding to the Corporation over the years, changes in government and political interference have been disruptive.
JOHNETY JERETY: Politicians come as members of parliament and then they use the opportunity to turn out funds from the institution and make it very difficult for the institution to have enough or appropriate funds to maintain its transmission system.Johnety Jerety says Radio Vanuatu's financial difficulties have been heightened by the emergence of several other FM stations, who are all competing for advertising dollars. The former mayor of Luganville, Maurice Emboe, says the quality of information being broadcast is also critical. Early this month there were claims in northern parts of Vanuatu, that the public broadcaster did not broadcast warnings about the approach of Cyclone Zena. Maurice Emboe says information needs to be accurate, timely, and regular.
MAURICE EMBOE: The authorities concerned, the media also should take more responsibility in communicating with regards to disaster or such information. To inform people, communicate with people, the tracking of these depressions, its whereabouts.Johnety Jerety says he's had several meetings with technical people and is confident nation-wide coverage will be achieved by Radio Vanuatu by the July 1 deadline.http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/programmes/datelinepacific/audio/201798107/plan-to-return-radio-vanuatu-to-its-former-glory
(Romero/playdx)

Monday, April 18, 2016

The
Prasar Bharati Board is contemplating shutting down the short-wave service of
the External Services Division (ESD) of All India Radio (AIR) even as a proposal
to switch to an affordable internet-based radio service is still under
consideration. A section of the board is keen on closing down the short wave
service as an exorbitant amount is being spent to maintain the current
infrastructure.

“The
total budget allocated to ESD is Rs 100 crore annually. Out of this,
approximately Rs 95 crore is spent on the maintenance of short wave
transmitters, which includes the high cost of spare parts that are not easily
available. The remaining Rs 5 crore is spent on the production of programmes in
27 languages, and to pay the salaries of the staff who are hired on a contract
basis,” said a senior official in the ESD.

“One
would expect to gain a large fan base after spending so much money, but this has
not been the case with ESD. Since no survey has ever been done to determine the
number of listeners, we cannot give an exact or even an approximate number of
people who listen to AIR’s ESD channels across the world. But we know that we
have a good following based on the feedback that we receive from people in
countries where ESD is being listened to. Our listeners send us postcards or
emails from Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, etc. But the following is not
in proportion to the money being spent on this service,” said the senior
officer.

“The
proposal suggests the shutting down of short wave and the service being made
web-based. Since internet is far reaching, listening radio live on the web
should not hurt our existing fan base. But of course there is the argument that
short wave can reach even the remotest corners of the world, which is not the
case with internet signals. The shutting down of short wave, without a doubt,
will affect the propaganda value of India among its listeners abroad. This is
why there are chances that the short wave service might continue in neighboring
countries like China, Nepal, etc. Also, India’s edge in a continent like Africa
will suffer a blow if the short-wave is to be shut down,” said sources in
AIR.

To
understand the importance of short wave radio services overseas one can take a
look at the efforts that neighbouring China puts in for its own propaganda among
audiences abroad. “The communication strategies of China are impressive. For
example, they have respective radio documentaries about neighbouring countries
that educate the listeners about China’s take on the issues in that particular
country. Their transmitters are used to their full capacity which helps the
listener get a perfect signal. In India, none of our transmitters are being used
to their full capacity. So a listener would automatically prefer to listen to a
frequency that is clear and easy to hold on to. They also invest a lot in the
content of their programmes. There are Tamil radio programmes made by the
Chinese who speak Tamil. We have a programme in Swahili, which is produced with
the help of some African students who study in India. The reason why India has
failed to match the strategic communication design implemented by our neighbour
is that India is still a developing country. We have more important issues that
need to be addressed immediately. The decision to save money and put it in
improving our internet services and the quality of our programmes is not a bad
idea either,” said a senior official in ESD.

The
e-mail sent by this correspondent to Jawhar Sircar, CEO, Prasar Bharati, did not
get any response until the time of going to press.

All
India Radio had started external broadcasting shortly after the outbreak of the
Second World War, with a service in Pushtu for listeners across the country’s
then North West Frontier. The service was designated to counter radio propaganda
from Germany, directed at Afghanistan, Iran and Arab countries. After the war
ended, the equipment was presented to AIR, which took over active control and
continued external broadcasting.

Amanda Bennett is sworn in by
BBG CEO John Lansing as VOA's new Director. Kelu Chao, who served as acting VOA
Director for nearly a year, holds the
Bible.

WASHINGTON
D.C., April 18, 2016 -- Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist Amanda Bennett was sworn in today as the 29th Director of the Voice
of America (VOA).

"I am happy and excited to be joining such a vital news organization," said
Bennett. "VOA has a critical role ahead as it uses all its journalistic skills
and abilities to cover the stories of our country and its people, as well as
serving as the only source of reliable, objective and credible news and
information for a large part of the world."

Bennett has had a distinguished career in journalism. Most recently, she
has been a contributing columnist for The Washington Post. She served
as executive editor for Bloomberg News, where she created and ran a global team
of investigative reporters and editors, and also co-founded the Bloomberg News'
Women's Project. Bennett was editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and
the Lexington Herald-Leader. She also served as managing
editor/projects for The Oregonian in Portland.

Bennett was a longtime reporter, correspondent and editor for the Wall
Street Journal. In 1997, she shared the Pulitzer Prize for National
Reporting with her Wall Street Journal colleagues, and in 2001 led a
team from The Oregonian to a Pulitzer Prize for Public
Service.

She was a member of Pulitzer Prize Board from 2003 to 2010 and served as
the Board's co-chair in 2010. She has also served on the boards of The Gerald
Loeb Awards, the American Society of News Editors and the Fund for Investigative
Journalism.

A graduate of Harvard College, Bennett is the author of six books,
including "The Cost of Hope," her memoir of the battle she and Terence Foley,
her late husband, fought against his kidney cancer. She is co-founder of
TheDream.US, which provides college scholarships to the children of undocumented
immigrants in the United States.

"The Board and I are thrilled to have found a world-class journalist to
lead this great organization," said John Lansing, BBG CEO. "Amanda has an
excellent track record of strong and collaborative leadership. This, combined
with her deep understanding of the rapidly evolving digital news marketplace,
makes her uniquely qualified to lead VOA successfully into the future. We are
pleased to welcome her into our dedicated and talented VOA and BBG
family."

VOA's Associate Director of Language Programming Kelu Chao has served as
Acting VOA Director since June of last year.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Our April 18 (in the Americas) / April 19 (in the rest of the world) program
will feature Bellita Exposito, leader of Bellita y Jazztumbata and much more –
she has also been a presence in TV and radio in Cuba. You'll hear some great
Cuban Jazz and an interesting.interview about her own history and the expanding
roles of women in Jazz in Cuba generally. Also, some intense music from Pure
Mezcla by Pablo Menéndez & Mezcla, more of the beautiful concert piano album
Danzas Para Piano de Ignacio Cervantes, and some vintage 1980s popular dance
music from Juvenia 2000.
The WBCQ broadcast is best for the Americas, the Channel 292 for the rest of
the world (to date, we have received favorable reception reports from as far
East as Moscow and as far Southeast as Thessalonika, but we should be audible
beyond as well).

Reception was good last
weekend, allowing for successful decodes, including the nuances of the
gray-scale images. Here is the photo of the migrant as decoded by Dmitry in
Kursk, Russia, on 15670 kHz …

VOA Radiogram this weekend will
include a seven-minute segment of Olivia 64-2000, so let’s hope for poor
reception to give this slow-but-robust mode a workout. If reception conditions
are good, try a cheap receiver, or a compromised antenna, or a location with
electrical noise.

Here is the lineup for VOA
Radiogram, program 159, 16-17 April 2016, all in MFSK32 except where
noted:

The Mighty
KBC will have an extra digital mode
transmission this weekend. The usual minute of MFSK32 is Sunday at about 0220
UTC (Saturday 10:20 pm EDT), on 6040 kHz, via Germany, part of KBC’s broadcast
to North America Sunday 0000-0300 UTC. Eric van Willegen’s Giant Juke Box show
will then be repeated to Europe, Sunday, 0800-1000 UTC, on 6095 kHz, also via
Nauen, Germany. The MFSK32 will be at about 0920 UTC. Outside of Europe, you can
listen via http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/
.

Thank you for your reception
reports last weekend. In keeping with the pattern of alternating between oldest
and newest reports, I am now compiling the gallery of MFSK images from program
158. I hope to start sending those out this weekend.

The 59 years old DSWCI, which counts experienced DX-ers
in 33 countries all over the world as members, will in April issue

the 18th Edition of its annual Domestic
Broadcasting Survey. This survey is divided into three parts:

Part 1: The
44th edition of the Tropical
Bands Survey covering all ACTIVEbroadcasting stations on 2300 -
5700 kHz, including clandestines.

Part 2:
Domestic stations on international shortwave bands above 5700 kHz broadcasting
to a domestic audience.

Part 3:
Deleted frequencies between 2 and 30 MHz which have not been reported heard
during the past five years, but may reappear.

This new
Survey is based upon monitoring by our members, many official sources and
DX-bulletins. A16 schedules are included
when available. About 65 domestic shortwave
stations frequencies have left the bands. In order to make the DBS reliable, our own monitors around the
world have checked throughout the period April 2015 – March 2016, if each of
the 500 station frequencies is on the air.
ACTIVE stations are marked with an A (”Regular”), B
(”Irregular”) or C (”Sporadic”) in the list.
D means ”Likely inactive”.

A unique feature is the right column called ”Last log”.
It shows the last month and year before DBS deadline on March 31, 2016 when
the particular station was reported logged by a DX-er somewhere in the world. This
is another way of indicating the current audibility of the station. To
avoid inactive stations in this DBS,most
frequencies which have not been heard during the past year, have been deleted
and are moved to Part 3. No other frequency list has this feature!

Other useful features for easy identification (ID) are
the parallel frequencies and reference to Station ID slogans.

All
buyers of DBS-18 will get a username and password to the monthly updates on the
tropical bands published as "Tropical
Bands Monitor" on our website. The similar, historical data from 2005,
2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 are available to
anybody at www.dswci.org/tbm .

The 18
pages A-4 size DBS-18 is available by e-mail as
pdf-format (about 350kB).

A limited
number is also available printed on paper for the last time, because the DSWCI
is dissolved at the end of 2016!

During
the past score of years, several hundred new cities have been constructed in
many different areas of China. These new
cities: Some are large and some are small, some are independent self contained
units out on the edge of nowhere, and some are nearby adjuncts to large and
older cities.

This seemingly frantic and hideously
expensive building frenzy has produced an uncountable number of cities that are still largely
uninhabited, and the announced intention is to continue this rapid escalation
at the rate of 20 new cities each year for the next 20 years. If the sum of all these building projects is
ever completed, and if ever the citizens do move in, it is said that this would
be the largest mass migration in the history of planet Earth.

Take for example, the new city of
Jing Jin. This project is located south
east of the national capital, Beijing.
The entire city was planned to cover 100 square miles, with a major city
center and wide spread suburban areas.

Construction at Jing Jin began in
2002, and thus far 3,000 suburban single family villas have been built, each on
its own spacious plot of ground, and plans are in hand for the construction of
an additional 4,000 similar villas. But,
currently Jing Jin is just 2% occupied, and the rest lies abandoned.

The city also contains two colleges,
a museum and a golf course, a hot springs resort, as well as a huge number of
shops with only a few in operation. A
multi-storeyed 5 star Hyatt Regency Hotel with a capacity for 800 guests is
largely empty.

Jing Jin lies an hour drive from
Beijing, but it is just too far for residents to make a daily commute to the
capital city.

Fifty miles inland from Hong Kong
lies another massive building project, the New South China Shopping Mall. This huge shopping center was built on
confiscated farmlands and it was planned as the largest shipping mall in the
world with space for more than 2300 different shops. The facility lies almost unoccupied, with 1%
in use, and 99% abandoned.

Twenty miles outside Beijing,
another grandiose project lies in demolished ruin. The Disneyland style Wonderland Amusement
Park was intended to become the largest amusement park in Asia. Work began on this 120 acre project in 1998,
and well before completion it was abandoned.

Fifteen years later, what was left
was demolished and the land was taken back by its previous owners. Tentative plans have called for a luxury
supermarket on this isolated location.

There is one abandoned city in China
that has been left vacant for another reason altogether. The city of Beichuan, with its population of
160,000, is located almost in the center of the nation of China.

In 2008, a massive earthquake rated at 8.0
destroyed most of the buildings in Beichuan, with the death of 100,000 people,
including more than 1300 children at two high schools. Instead of rebuilding at the same dangerous
location, another city with the same name was built for the survivors some 15
miles down stream.

Described as the world’s largest abandoned city is
Kangbashi, on the edge of the already inhabited city of Ordos in the territory
of Inner Mongolia. Planning for this
huge new city began in 2003, and construction work began just one year later.

Original planning called for
construction on a total of 137 square miles, though work on only 14 square
miles has been completed. This new city
would hold one million people, and the total investment would involve $161
billion. However, Kangbashi is only 2%
occupied, snd the rest is going to rot and ruin.

As completed, Kangbashi has a
multi-storeyed unfinished and largely unused hospital, a huge sports stadium
complete with unoccupied seating, a futuristic style museum with almost no
items on display, an unusual style library with practically no readers, and
wide well planned thoroughfares with almost no traffic. There is a five-storeyed food court, with
almost no food available, and a Dancing Music Fountain, the largest in Asia,
with a tourist display each evening but very few to watch it.

What about the radio scene in this
fantastic and largely unused fabulous city?
If the city is largely abandoned, then you would expect that there are
no radio and TV stations within the city itself. If
that is your expectation, then you would be correct. There are no active radio and TV stations in
Kangbashi New City.

However, there is a major radio and
TV service in the nearby parent city Ordos, which provides electronic coverage
to the few who have taken up permanent residency, some as squatters, in the new
Kingbashi. The government head office
for the Bureau of Radio and Television in Ordos is located on

E'erduosi
Street in the district Ejin Horo.

The Ordos Broadcasting station is
located at Manduhai Xiang in Dongshen Ou, and it provides four channels of
radio program service, with nine active transmitters on both mediumwave and
FM. On mediumwave are four transmitters,
each rated apparently at 10 kW. The
frequencies for these four transmitters are: 603 792 896 and 936 kHz.

That is the story of Kangbashi New
City, which is touted as China’s
most famous tourist city.

The Cook Islands are an island group in the South Pacific
located quite close to Tahiti. The Cook Islands Maori language is quite
similar to the native Tahitian language. But while Tahiti was colonized
by France and its inhabitants speak French as well as Tahitian, the Cook
Islands were colonized by New Zealand and their inhabitants speak English as
well as Cook Islands Maori. The Cook Islands were given autonomous status
in 1965, but they remain very closely associated with New Zealand.

Last September, my wife Thais and I stopped over in the Cook
Islands for a few days on our way back from New Zealand to the United States. Air
New Zealand very conveniently makes a stopover there. And a very pleasant
stopover it was. The main island of Rarotonga is one of those idyllic
South Pacific paradise islands with consistently warm weather, warm people,
beautiful tropical vegetation, perfect sandy beaches and turquoise water. We
stayed in a modern thatch-roofed bungalow right on the beach at a place
enticingly called the Magic Reef Resort.

We rented a car and drove all around the island -- which can be
done in a few hours -- and I asked some of the local people what their favorite
radio station was. Most of them told me 88 FM, and they mentioned a DJ
named George Williams, who goes by G-Dub on the air. So off I went in
search of G-Dub. I caught up with him at an outdoor cafe in the island’s
capital city.

Radio Cook Islands on 630 kHz AM began broadcasting as a
government-owned station in the 1970’s using a 5 kilowatt transmitter. Later,
the power was cut in half due to power costs. Radio Cook Islands also had
a shortwave channel for a time - 11760 kHz -- but this has not been on the air
since the early 1990’s.

The station’s website says that it is heard on AM all over
Rarotonga, the main island, as well as the southern Cook Islands. It says
it can be heard in the north Cook Islands on car radios with wires strung
between coconut trees. It’s also streamed live via Internet, so local FM
stations on the outer islands can rebroadcast it.

Radio Cook Islands was privatized in 1996, then went back to the
government in 1998. In 1999, a private company acquired the station and
decided to continue its commitment as the national station of the Cook Islands
in the absence of a public service broadcaster. Program content includes
news, Cook Islands culture and language, local music and community events.

In
2006 it added an FM frequency of 101.1 MHz. Programming includes some
rebroadcasts of Radio New Zealand.

Matariki FM broadcasts in both
Cook Islands Maori and English, but its programming is mostly music from the
Cook Islands and Tahiti, with some music from other South Pacific islands. Matariki FM’s live stream, by the way, can be
heard on the Internet at matarikifm.co.ck.

If you need a current stamp list or supply list, I can
mailor email it to you.

GREAT NEWS: Domestic rate DROPS!! April 10th to 47c and
additional ounce drops from 22c to 21c....International rate DROPS to $1.15.
Postage grids below are updated for this. The postage Grab Bags have been
discontinued. Check out special deal for 47c in 2 stamps listed below April DX
Stamp Specials.

MORE NEWS: I have several hundred of $1.15 in 3
stamps available. 100 for $90.00ppd or 300 for
$260.00ppd.

IDEA:

NEW RATES: Moldova now 15,50 up from 8,50

France, Andorra and Monaco rates increased, was 1,20 euro now 1,25. France
is 20g world forever, no update needed. I have update for Andorra if you need
it. I will be selling the Monaco forever stamp now.

Philippines increased from 40p to 45p. I can update if you need it.

Gibraltar rate increased from 51p to 80p. No problem as Gibraltar forever
stamp covers the new rate.

Monday, April 11, 2016

Since the addition of Channel 292 we are now getting excellent reception
reports from as far east as Moscow.

Our April 11 (in the Americas) / April 12 (for the rest of the world) program
will have more dance music than usual, with special guests Jesus Chappottin and
Miguelito Cuni Jr. of Conjunto Chappotin, some classic dance tracks from
Conjunto Los Bocucos and some Timba from El Niño y la Verdad. On the Jazz front,
a new release by Brenda Navarrete, and more beautiful Cuban concert music from
the album Danzas Para Piano de Ignacio Cervantes.

Friday, April 08, 2016

The German communications regulator Bundesnetzagentur jhas
changed its mind about allowing digital modes on shortwave broadcast
transmitters in Germany. Apparently BNetzA thought that Channel 292 was
transmitting the text and images in single sideband (SSB), which is how
amateurs, military, etc, transmit the digital modes. Now that they know that the
MFSK32 and other modes are sent as program audio on an analogue
amplitude-modulation shortwave transmitter, their objections were withdrawn.
(It's similar to A2A modulated CW.)

BNetzA prefers that the term MFSK32 not be used to describe
these broadcasts, but we have to specify the mode so that you can set Fldigi or
other decoding software to the correct mode. In any case, the weekly MFSK32
transmission will resume on The Mighty KBC, and DigiDX will return to Channel
292.

Meanwhile, VOA Radiogram this weekend will be all MFSK32
except for the transmission schedule in Olivia 64-2000 under the closing
music.

Here is the lineup for VOA Radiogram, program
158, 9-10 April 2016, all in MFSK32 except where noted:

The Mighty KBC will (after a one-week break)
transmit a minute of MFSK32 Sunday at about 0220 UTC (Saturday 10:20 pm EDT) on
6040 kHz, via Germany. Sometimes the MFSK32 is as late as 0228 UTC. Reports for
this KBC reception to Eric: themightykbc@gmail.com